Ep. 20: Morten Andersen: Professional Football Hall of Fame Kicker

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Morten Andersen is a former professional football kicker who spent most of his career with the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons. He played in a record 382 games during his 25 year career and is the all-time leading scorer in NFL history with 2,544 points. In 2017, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. These days Morten is a motivational speaker and also oversees his family foundation. He resides in Atlanta, GA.

Some interesting insights from this episode:

As an exchange student, he never intended to stay in the United States for more than a year but when he tried out for the high school football team on a whim, he made the team which led to a full scholarship at Michigan State which led to one of the greatest NFL careers in history.

The goal is to practice enough so you can get to a level of “unconscious competence”.

He had to swallow a “humility pill” after he hit a performance plateau and hire a team of experts to get him back to a high level and extend his career many years.

He kicked on 8’ goalposts during practice so come game time, he would have a much easier time executing with 18’6” goal posts.

As an athlete, all you can control is effort and attitude. Everything else is white noise.

If you focus more on the process than the results, the results will follow.

His sports psychologist introduced the idea of “goal windows” which altered his mindset about how to measure performance and hence, how to feel successful.

He had his best year statistically over his 25 year career in his final season at the age of 47.